Playing music
by KuwaNeko
Summary: "The first time she had heard the sound, it had completely enthralled her..." more like, me indulging in on thoughts of 'how else' Elsa's magic would have affected her life had she played a stringed instrument


Forgive me, I couldn't help myself.

This came to be thanks to a series of discussions born due, somewhat, to the frozenfandommonth that's going on on tumblr, which became a small discussion on controlling powers and music, and then someone said something like "but it's not until after the thaw that she can play with actual feelings" and a freaking plotbunny pounced on me…

the original post talked about cello, but I confess on being totally biased, I'm a violist, if out of practice, so this is, somewhat, me geeking out on violins and specially on violas.

also, who the hell decided to name the notes as letters… do you have any idea how hard it is to call a 'do' a C; no, seriously… 

so, disclaimer: if it had been mine, Elsa would have been hugged a lot more...

in other words: not mine, don't own it, don't sue. 

* * *

The first time she had heard the sound, it had completely enthralled her, so different from the usual sound of the piano chords or the plucky sound of guitars and lutes.

Instead of that, this music seemed to flow, moving from note to note as in the very same breath, sometimes even gliding from one to another, not in the way a piano did, with all notes in between like moving on stairs; but actually crossing through all tones in between.

Then there would be notes that would start to wobble, rather slowly at first, and then pick up speed, making it sound like a tremble, and still without really changing the tone; so different from what she'd heard any piano ever do; she'd heard something similar in the lute, but here, instead, the sound continued, and continued and continued far longer than she'd ever heard any other instrument before.

"Papa, what is that sound?" her father had looked at her and smiled, perhaps noticing the awe in her voice.

"That's a violin, Elsa."

"Violin…" she had repeated, and given the second smile her father had turned towards her, she had probably made it sound like a prayer.

Somewhat encouraged by the smile she had asked to learn it, instead of the piano, as she had been for the last few months back then. Now she couldn't quite remember, but she had the impression that there had been some… rather unpleasant times before that, with the piano lessons as the center of the discussions.

She had liked to listen to the piano, but her love for the instrument did not truly extend to playing it, specially since the keys felt much too hard to push after a short while, and no matter what she did, her hands where just too small for her to play what she actually wanted to.

And there was also the fact that she hadn't actually chosen to study music in the first place, she could remember hearing words like discipline and dedication, which to tell the truth, now made a lot more sense then they had done back then…

Though she now suspected her parents had also been hoping for some time to keep her and Anna away from mischief for a while… if only because she wouldn't be able to propose or aid in any mischief while she was learning. That, and the fact that even three year old Anna tended to stay calm while listening to her practice.

Her mother had, years later confessed on having been rather nervous before the first class, given that, it seemed, it was a nearly universal fact that everyone starting violin classes tended to sound like someone torturing cats.

Thankfully, she had never sounded like that, specially since she wasn't sure her love for the instrument would have survived it. Sadly, they did not escape that fate when Anna decided to study violin too, a year into her isolation. It had taken her about a month to be able to be guiltily proud that her little sister had decided to study violin too. 

* * *

At the start of her isolation, music had been just another study, one she had thrown herself into, one that she actually enjoyed, like she did maths; though she found that here, too, her powers were starting to cause trouble if she let the air around her to drop… instruments were sensible to the weather, after all; and so, here too, she decided to 'not feel', so that she wouldn't affect the music she played. 

* * *

By eleven she had mostly managed playing without damaging her violin, and though sometimes the room still tended to get rather cold, she could hear the change in the music enough as to stop.

But it was also then that things had truly started getting difficult, specially since the passages and exercises were becoming harder and faster, and it made her heart beat faster as well; making frost want to cling to her fingers.

She feared that soon, this too, she would lose to her inability to control her powers.

Maybe it had been her loss of enthusiasm, the obvious struggle with the passages - if well the professor didn't know it was her trying to control her feelings and not the music itself that was causing the difficulties - or, maybe something else entirely; that that year was also the year her professor introduced her to a new instrument.

That day he had entered the study that had been reserved to act as a music classroom with a case that was rather bigger than the usual one, and she wasn't sure if it was now just her imagination, but she thought she remembered a rather devious smile.

And when he had opened the case, there had been an instrument that looked very, very similar to her violin, other than being quite larger.

With an encouraging nod the professor had signaled her to take the instrument and give it a try; it was heavy, well, not too heavy, but certainly more than what she was accustomed to, especially considering it hadn't been long since she'd been given her full size violin.

Tentatively, she had pressed the bow to one of the middle strings, a soft stroke downwards, that didn't manage any clear sound other than the cord creaking in protest.

She had furrowed her brow, and pressed harder, this time gaining a clear - no, not clear, a clean sound, thick, rich… and loud, from the string, that seemed to resonate beyond the instrument; almost like the sound itself were vibrating in her very bones. She pressed harder, to see how loud she could manage to make that one note sound… very loud, it seemed… like being able to play three violins at the same time.

The strings where sturdier, and harder to press, though thankfully their thickness implied she didn't feel like the strings could cut her, like sometimes the E string had seemed to want to in her violin, at the beginning.

The spacing was different, fingers needing to stretch further than usual, and yet somehow it also felt natural, if only a tiny bit forced, given her slender fingers; for a moment she pondered whether she would have felt the difference, had her fingers been thicker.

G string, same as in her violin, though here being the second from the left instead of the first; G - A - B - C, a half octave up, feeling how the notes resonate, B - A - G, she returned, and continued downwards, to complete the octave and studied this new string, F - E - D - C… and she had been enthralled once more, much like she had been at six when she'd first heard the violin play.

Her face must have expressed her awe like nothing else because the beaming face of her professor spoke of relief, but also of triumph, an 'I knew this one was meant for you'. 

* * *

Changing instrument had helped for a time, the getting used to the different positions of the fingers had been almost instinctual on her left hand, though her right hand, the bow hand, had taken a little more coaxing to remember the proper grip.

And it was amazing how the grip alone could changed so much the amount of control and sound the bow made; in violin you could pretty much expend with the pinky, unless you were playing near the frog of the bow. In viola though it was needed, very much so, that and the index finger, to allow the strength and weight of the arm to reach the strings and make them sound properly.

She was able to loose herself in the monotony of repetition, a rather mindless and a manageable feelingless-ness of the short studies that were meant to teach the control and dexterity needed for playing far complexer things; concertos, sinfonias and sonatas, few as they were, those specifically for viola, and the far more adapted from either violin or more likely cello studies. And it was impossible for her to disconnect it from the music, like it was always impossible for her to completely disconnect her feelings from anything she did, and the nearer she got to managing to achieve it, the deader the music sounded… the more her soul ached at the lack of feeling in it.

She had tried back then, really tried playing with the gloves on, like she had to, to touch most anything those days without freezing it, and then more than ever had she hated those gloves; how she couldn't properly feel anything with them, but specially how much of a lost cause it all was, for she could see how her powers where still growing, and she could see that not too far along she wouldn't be able to touch her viola, either… 

* * *

By the time she was seventeen she could no longer play, not for years now, not since the cold of her presence alone would make the poor instrument sound like it had a cold - and oh the irony that even instruments could feel the cold when she herself couldn't; not since it became impossible to touch anything barehanded without freezing it, not since she left a frozen hand-print on her viola's case; she was sure that actual frost, and the water it left after it thawed would only irreparably damage it, and so, she had finally given up on the classes, and given up on playing.

She was seventeen and the part of her soul that always connected to music, the part she was never completely able to keep from clinging into her playing still ached with the absence of the instrument… the part that decided to cling to Anna's playing instead; she still played the violin, and it certainly suited her, her perkiness and enthusiasm… 

* * *

At nineteen, and for a year now the corridors of the castle had resounded with nothing but silence… 

* * *

Its about a month since the ice-skating courtyard presentation, all the dignitaries have finally been able to depart, the lasts being the one whose ship actually toppled during her snowstorm. Considering everything that happened she is still surprised at how easily her subjects have forgiven her, have embraced the idea of her powers; she'd think they must have dismissed it, or forced themselves to forget about it, except that people still come to the courtyard to skate regularly.

She knows cold, she's known it all her life, and knows since she was eight how life and cold don't tend to mix; and so she considers it a miracle that despite all, that despite her, when she cancelled her magic the crops and plants did not die; she if glad for little mercies, that her winter started at night, all animals safe for the night; and all but those at her coronation in their houses.

It was luck, she knows, that between all the chaos of those three days, there have been so very few things to mend; and now only things left are the ruffled sensibilities of the countries that have heard from her powers indirectly… and the nasty propaganda that the weasel has been spreading…

A sound from the hallway distracts her from her musings, a clear sound. Curiosity has her leaving her study in search for it, a single note, if slightly out of pitch, though not for long, and a second note joins the first, this one, too, in search of the right pitch; and she wonder's when she'd forgotten the beauty that is tuning an instrument.

She arrives in an old study, one she hasn't entered for more than five years now, one that she's sure hasn't been used in at least three; and electricity jumps up her spine, and her hands itch, though not with her ice; and she doesn't know whether she wants to cry, to laugh, or to crash the doors open, hug her sister, steal her violin and play till she can't feel her fingers any more…

But she knows that's selfish, extremely selfish, and so she does enter; and hates herself for doing so when Anna stops playing and stares at her like she's been caught doing something wrong. So, feeling a little daring, especially since part of her is still itching to just take her sister's instrument, she moves to one of the cabinets and takes out her own case.

She'd left it here since she stopped playing… no she'd left it here long before that, worried that her ice and the humidity would harm the precious treasure within, and doesn't notice she's holding her breath as she opens the case to look at the instrument inside.

Taking the viola out, after touching and getting reacquaintanced with her instrument once more, after checking that it's still as perfect as the last time she saw it, she turns to look inquisitively at Anna, and finds her sister teary-eyed and already nodding with enough strength to make it impossible to doubt what her answer is.

So she approaches and ask with her eyes for the A to tune, and feels surprised at the weirdness of feeling that is having the instrument on her shoulder, of remembering how to hold the bow, and yet having to make sure she's holding it properly, that the act that she could once perform without thinking, her body remembering on its own, is now something she must make sure is happening.

Of knowing how to do it, yet her hands and arms not quite managing the movements. She comments on it and Anna laughs and says she knows, because she too feels like her fingers turned to stone or something cause they're sluggish and won't move properly… and they both laugh, and start playing.

And it's rusty, and off-key, and they should probably have started with scales, to re-learn how to play their instruments, and yet, she's sure she has never heard anything more beautiful in her life; and for once, here with the music and her sister, she feels complete. 


End file.
